Whisconier Middle School teacher honored for leading students in community service

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BROOKFIELD -- Stacks of boxes lined the entire length of the hallway and almost reached the ceiling. And groups of students packed even more boxes tightly with clothes, shoes and toys, increasing the size of the stacks.

It was the last day of a collection drive at Whisconier Middle School. All month long students and community members brought in clothes, toys, hygiene items and school supplies that will be shipped to destitute parts of Nicaragua.

Last-minute donations poured in -- bags upon bags of clothes, some wash cloths and more shoes.

One teacher darted among the students and fetched more tape, grabbed energy-boosting snacks for wilting volunteers and helped sort school supplies. She paused, just once, when a female student asked if her hair was brown or black, because some boys had made her doubt her own coif.

Rogalin, a humanities teacher, has been running the collection drive with her students for the past 15 years. Many of the students come back and volunteer even after they reach high school. In the last weeks in which the drive was held, about 20 of her students were ready after school to help pack boxes.

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"Joining Hands Around the World" concert, Saturday at 7 p.m.
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Whisconier Middle School teacher Pamela Rogalin will be presented with an award for her 18 years of volunteer work to collect items for families in Nicaragua.

Because of her efforts, Rogalin will receive the 2010 Bridges of Peace and Hope Heroes Award on Saturday at the "Joining Hands Around the World" concert at Western Connecticut State University.

Rogalin said the award was more meaningful because she had been nominated by students.

"She has a way of getting kids involved in community service, whether it's local or around the world," parent volunteer Nina Jacobs said.

Jacobs and her daughter, who is now in high school, have helped Rogalin with the drive for the past four years.

"Sometimes things happen to you," Rogalin said, describing how she began the collection drive almost two decades ago. She was sitting on a Board of Education meeting, and the members didn't know how to dispose of their old computers. The next day, Rogalin went to the Connecticut Quest for Peace meeting, and someone brought up how they needed computers for one of their programs in New Mexico.

At the time, Rogalin taught social studies and wrapped the drive into the unit on the American Southwest.

Verity Sterm, 12, was one of the students packing clothes on Wednesday. She mused that what she considered trash, children in Nicaragua needed.

"Just out of Brookfield we got millions of boxes," Sterm said. "If we collected things from people all over the U.S., we could help the whole world."